


You Fool

by Rhaized



Series: Adventures of Mary and Marisa [18]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: (well abandonment), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And monkey knows it, Angst, F/F, Family Death, Grief, Jealousy, Mary is the one that got away (was pushed away), Moving On, Post-breakup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29892405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaized/pseuds/Rhaized
Summary: “What happened?” Marisa pressed, feeling her voice almost get lost in her throat as she practically choked the words out under the suffocation that was the monkey staring so intensely over at Mary, his Mary.“We can’t do this,” Mary said before anyone else could say it. It stung. Marisa wished it didn't sting, but it did. She nodded, scuffling her chair back instinctively in response. “We can’t do this, Marisa.”“I know,” she answered, looking down at a broken piece of tile below the table.—or—Marisa ditched Mary and ran away to America because it was too much and too fast and Mary deserved far better than her. Months later, however, Marisa returns back to her real job at Oxford and finds that Mary has moved on.
Relationships: Marisa Coulter & Marisa Coulter's Daemon, Marisa Coulter/Mary Malone
Series: Adventures of Mary and Marisa [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2073954
Comments: 13
Kudos: 20





	You Fool

**Author's Note:**

> TW: at the end, there is mention of cancer / death of a side character.

It was after Marisa returned from a semester abroad as a visiting instructor at the illustrious Massachusetts Institute of Technology that she first saw Mary again. 

She was in the department lounge getting a cup of coffee. It was just past ten o’clock, which was the slowest hour of the day. Marisa knew that Mary  _ hated  _ the morning hours as she typically felt like she was still trying to wake up. She was a "nocturnal creature," she used to say, wrinkling her nose and letting out a hearty laugh. Anything before noon was the devil's hour for her. She preferred the late afternoon and the evening as it was when she truly felt alive and in sync with her brain. It had taken everything in Marisa's power to get her home for dinner at a proper hour, back when they were together. Back before Marisa left.

Mary didn't  _ look  _ tired, though. She almost seemed cheerful as she went over to the little coffee stand, her steps light and bouncy in her signature converse sneakers and straight-legged blue jeans. It was remarkable, really, to see her so bright and alert at this hour when Marisa had spent the better part of a year knowing her only as sluggish and drowsy. Her  _ hair _ was different, too, Marisa noticed. It was shorter and was styled in a way Marisa had never seen, with her curls going in a different direction and what looked like actual product inserted into it. Mary hadn’t paid much attention to her hair before, which was fair enough as it had always looked fine the way it was. But it looked so taken care of here in this moment. Pretty.  _ Showy,  _ almost, if that even made any sense. 

“Hey,” Marisa said, voice neutral as she headed over to the table herself, coffee mug dangling from her right fingers while she rested her left hand carefully on top of her thigh. 

Mary stiffened upon hearing the greeting. Marisa saw it, the way her body clenched and all the cheer she'd seen before seemed to vanish. She  _ felt  _ it, too, in the air all around them—a hot and burning tension that washed over Marisa like a sudden downpour. 

“You’re back,” Mary said after a few beats as she finally turned to face her. She was wearing makeup, Marisa saw. It was light makeup of face powder, eyeshadow, mascara, and a hint of lip gloss. Barely noticeable, really, but still more than Mary had ever worn  _ before.  _

So many little things about her seemed to be different, Marisa couldn't help but realize. She was in America for over six months, which  _ was  _ a long time. But long enough for someone to change? 

“I am,” Marisa replied, forcing a smile as she considered the other woman. It was strange to see Mary’s eyes so distant, when usually they were the embodiment of light and warmth and everything pure. They glared at Marisa passively now—not cold and not angry but simply empty. Mary's eyes, once the most comforting place Marisa could ever find, offered her absolutely nothing. “Term finished up a few weeks ago back in the States.”

Mary didn’t say anything else after that. She nodded curtly before picking up her half-filled coffee mug and then walking away, steps quick and purposeful. Marisa simply watched her, aware of something pricking at her deep within the pit of her stomach. 

"She's changed," Mary confided to her daemon later that evening back at the hotel. She was staying at the Museum Hotel for the time being. She needed to find a place to live because, well, she didn't live with Mary anymore, yet she had to come back to work and start anew and move on with her life. 

"But how  _ was  _ she?" the golden monkey pressed as Marisa moved to take off her earrings and toss them on the table, adding her necklace and bracelet and watch. "Did she seem okay?" 

"Yes," Marisa said, surprising both herself and the monkey at the  _ feeling  _ nestled into her tone as she sank down onto the plush bed, staring ahead of her at the wall. "She seems more than okay, actually. She seemed…happy. Until I said hello to her, that was."

Marisa saw Mary again the next day at a faculty meeting. It was the beginning of term and Marisa had only just come back to work even as she'd been in the country for almost two weeks. She'd spent time visiting London, which felt both familiar yet achingly foreign to her as she roamed around by foot and by car, visiting her only half-accurate haunts. Her flat didn't even exist in this London, which was strange given she'd lived in the more residential area. She'd also visited the northern cities and some of the smaller towns before circling back to Oxford, where she had a  _ job  _ and had to eventually  _ return.  _

She didn't exactly receive a warm welcome as she entered the conference room, however. The chatter stopped as people noticed her walk in, handbag (with money in tow this time) on her left side as she moved quickly and surely in her gray pantsuit outfit she'd purchased at one of Boston's finest retailers. It'd been a while since she'd last seen them, she knew. Over six months ago when she'd sent a department-wide email announcing her sudden departure to America for a visiting professorship and thus causing courses to be reassigned and lab work to be re-distributed all without any advanced notice. 

So they stared as she walked in, and she simply smiled back—bright and radiant, as if they were the Royal Family themselves gracing her with their presence. No one said anything as she walked over to the back, and that was fine. She didn't care about them and so ignored them, her eyes peeled for one short redhead. As Marisa sat down, bringing her left leg over her right knee, she finally spotted her—and someone  _ else.  _

Marisa had never seen this woman before but could only assume that she was somehow part of the department. She had mid-length, wavy blonde hair parted evenly down the middle that curled to frame her high cheekbones. She was a little taller than Mary (though not by much) and wore a pair of black skinny jeans and a dark brown, handknit sweater. She was pretty, Marisa reflected, watching as someone made a joke and the woman smiled. It lit up her whole face and warmed her eyes, which were a soft brown. As she was laughing about whatever it was someone had said, Mary started laughing, too. And then she put her hand on the other woman's arm, and with a jolt, Marisa realized what, exactly, was happening. 

_ Don't start,  _ the monkey warned her,  _ all  _ too aware of the sheer eruption that coursed through Marisa's system just then. She felt hot, like bathing in a bed of heated rocks as she continued to stare. They were getting in their seats now, and Mary's arm was laying across the back of the blonde's chair. It was casual, and familiar, and  _ accepted  _ as the woman eventually sat back and then rubbed her shoulders against it, turning to gaze at Mary softly. 

The noise quieted down as the department chair rose to go over to the podium, but Marisa wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to him. Her blue eyes bore into the back of the blonde woman's head. It was the monkey who had to pay attention as things got started. 

"And of course," Dr. Peters was saying about ten minutes or so in, "we both welcome a new permanent faculty line and welcome  _ back  _ one of our own." 

This was it. Marisa felt her neck stiffen already as she prepared for his remarks, and prepared for Mary's  _ reaction  _ to them. 

"First," Dr. Peters was saying, voice warm, "we welcome Dr. Rebecca Greg officially on as full-time faculty to continue her work in the Dark Matter Research Lab and with our undergraduate honors program."

Applause broke out then, and Marisa watched the blonde— _ Rebecca _ —very closely. A faint blush entered her cheeks as everyone clapped. She squirmed a little, too, clearly uncomfortable with the attention. 

_ You fake,  _ Marisa couldn't help but spit out.  _ I bet you love it. You've been living for this moment.  _

But she really  _ did  _ seem humble as she nodded once then looked shyly over at Mary. For her part, Mary was absolutely  _ beaming,  _ eyes so soft and bright as she sat next to Rebecca, arm still slung around the chair and body leaning forward toward her. 

_ They're in love,  _ the monkey realized for the both of them, which made them simply stop.  _ You can tell by the way she looks at her.  _

Marisa didn't  _ want  _ to see it, the adoration in Mary's eyes, face, and entire body. She didn't want to see the way her hand moved to lay gently on Rebecca's leg, or the way Rebecca moved her own hand to cover it. She didn't want to see that, but above all she didn't want to  _ feel  _ the way that she was feeling, which teetered on the edge of unbearable as Dr. Peters then moved on to say her name. 

"And returning from our colleagues over at MIT is Dr. Marisa Coulter, resuming her work in the lab and as a member of the graduate faculty."

Only the briefest and politest of applause followed for Marisa. Whispers broke out, too, and heads craned back curiously to get a look at her. But again, none of them mattered. They were worthless. Marisa had only eyes for one person, who, at the moment, did not react or move or  _ anything  _ as she continued to talk to Rebecca, eyes still warm entirely and only for  _ her.  _

The rest of the meeting was lost in a haze as Marisa did her best to get by, ignoring the monkey and his thoughts as best she could. 

_ You're upset,  _ he'd blather in her mind, squirming around in the handbag.  _ Just admit it. You'll feel so much better once you can admit it.  _

_ I'm not,  _ she defied, focusing on Dr. Peters and his presentation and the new regulations and  _ anything  _ except Mary and Rebecca seated in front of them on the right. 

_ Marisa,  _ he insisted, but she shut it down. It was easier, to pretend not to feel and to pretend not to care. It'd gotten Marisa through so many other ordeals throughout her life, from her childhood to her marriage to Edward to her affair with Asriel to her abandonment of Lyra. And it'd worked for her, most of the time. So it could certainly work for her now. 

_ You fool,  _ was all her daemon could offer her then. She bristled and then disengaged almost completely. 

Heading back to the lab after the meeting brought about another issue Marisa hadn't quite been expecting. 

"Hey there," said an unusually chipper Oliver Payne as he caught pace with her on their way out of the conference room. "You look great, Marisa. The east coast treated you well, huh?" 

"What do you want, Oliver?" she sighed, shushing the monkey slightly as he very nearly growled at the man. Oliver had been her most ardent assailant back when she’d decided to flee to the other side of the world since he’d been asked to take on most of her work.

“What do you mean you’re  _ leaving?”  _ he’d screamed at her as she hastily packed up her desk in their office space, taking advantage of the hour that Mary was across campus for a committee meeting. “It’s the middle of our term! You  _ can’t  _ just  _ leave.  _ Do you know Peters asked me to take on  _ all  _ of your courses because I’m the only one in your sub-area right now? Do you know what that’s going to do for my own research productivity?”

She did know; she understood it all very well as she’d been in academa for several years back in her own world, too. She just didn’t  _ care  _ as she scoffed at him and then hurried out of the building, eager to make it home and pack her bags before Mary even realized what had happened.

So to see the dark-haired man so friendly to her could  _ only  _ mean that he wanted something from her, that he had some sort of  _ angle _ to play. It's what she would do, of course. Marisa wasn’t stupid, and she was too tired to be delicate about it. 

“There’s been a change in office arrangements since you’ve left,” he said then, clearly deciding just to get on with it as she’d asked. 

Marisa stopped walking at that mid-step, eying him carefully. She hadn't expected  _ that,  _ and though he didn't say it outright, understood exactly what he'd meant. But again, she was tired. So very tired. “Just tell me where my office is, Oliver.”

“It’s actually on the second floor with the chemists,” he returned, equally as frank now. “We thought it would be....best, for you to spend time here only when actively working in the lab. Sheryl from chemistry has your key.”

Marisa was pretty sure this was the kind of blatant discrimination she could go to the union over. They couldn’t  _ really _ do this, physically separate her from her own departmental facility due to a personal vendetta. It was not conducive to her research—to their  _ joint  _ research—or to her duties teaching and advising students. She was too shocked to feel the  _ anger  _ that she should feel, that her colleagues clearly rallied against her and were playing petty politics to punish her for leaving. 

_ All because of Mary?  _ the monkey wondered, vaguely, but Marisa knew they didn’t have time to focus on that now.

“Fine,” she sighed, twisting around so that she could head back the way they’d come over to the elevator. “Thank you for telling me, Oliver. I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

The rest of that week went as poorly as Marisa could have expected. Barely anybody talked to her at all, and only when they had to and when Marisa herself initiated it. It was like watching a movie, in a strange way, where Marisa was on the outside looking in. She did her work and she felt everything first-hand yet at the same time didn’t. She also hadn’t seen or heard from Mary, who was somehow always absent whenever she needed to be in the lab or on the third floor physics space.

_She’s avoiding you,_ the golden monkey confirmed in their thoughts as they settled down for bed after Monday of week two. Marisa had guessed this, and although it seemed like admitting the _obvious,_ she appreciated that her daemon could sense it as well.

“I suppose we can’t really blame her,” Marisa sighed, closing her eyes for a moment and temporarily reliving that day and that moment way back when, of her urging the taxi driver to keep going as Mary jumped out of her car at the house and chased after them while waving her arms.

_ What are we supposed to do?  _ the monkey asked her after a long while, not sure if she was even awake or not.

“What we always do,” she murmured back, kicking her feet under the covers and then pulling them snugly over her. “Carry on, acting like nothing ever happened.”

Except it  _ did.  _ No matter how hard Marisa wished to deny it or forget it, and no matter how far she fled and for how long she disappeared, it would still be there. For both of them. For  _ all  _ of them.

A couple weeks later Marisa actually saw Mary properly again. They had a lab meeting to discuss some new protocols being put into place after a graduate student from another lab set something on fire and shut down the whole floor. They needed to be more careful, Dr. Willis implored them. They needed to monitor the students—undergraduate and doctoral alike. One single mistake could cost quite literally an entire fortune of research funds that they didn’t actually have.

At the end of the meeting, everyone except Mary sprang up as fast as they possibly could to get on with their day. She sat in her seat looking down at her phone, eyebrows furrowed and shoulders hunched.

Marisa recognized that look. It was Mary’s highest level of concern. She didn’t get like this often, as cheery and optimistic as she naturally was. She was discouraged by things, of course, and felt disappointed, but she seldom ever got stuck in  _ trances  _ like this.

_ Was this how she was when we left her?  _ the golden monkey mused in her brain, even though he was hidden under one of the desks nearby and not physically close to her.

Marisa knew she shouldn’t get involved. She didn’t have the right, not anymore. She surrendered her rights the moment she ducked into that taxi and the second she told him to keep driving as she blocked Mary’s number from her cell phone. She solidified it as she ignored all the emails and instant messages and even physical  _ mail  _ that came in for her at her new MIT office address. Yet still Marisa lingered, eyes scanning Mary’s face now as it frowned and, alarmingly, twisted.

“Mary?” Marisa called out before she could stop herself. The redhead did nothing as Marisa’s voice filled the small room. She didn’t stiffen or run away, or snarl or lash out. She just sat there, entirely unfazed. So Marisa stepped closer. “Mary? Are you alright?”

And then it happened, as part of Marisa had sensed it would. A great sob raked through Mary as she collapsed against the table, her head resting on top of her elbows. Marisa flew to her, finding herself teetering on the edge of the seat beside her with her right hand cautiously just barely touching the small of her back. Her heart was pounding as the severity of the situation weighed in all around the two of them. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, horribly wrong. And Mary, even Mary whose patience and tenacity transcended anything Marisa had ever known, couldn’t seem to handle it.

“Tell me,” Marisa insisted, hand placing firmer pressure on Mary’s back now as she shifted her chair closer. Mary kept sobbing, the sound of her cries drowning Marisa and keeping her rooted there to the spot as, again, she  _ knew  _ that she should leave.

“It’s Zoe,” Mary let out after a few moments, her voice cracked and her head still buried in her arms there on that rickety, chipped table.

“What about her?” Marisa asked, aware of her chest tightening and a swirling sensation entering her throat.

It was quiet again as Mary sobbed. Silence didn't have to be awkward. It could be beautiful, really, between two people who were comfortable enough to sit amongst unspoken thoughts and feelings. But this was not one of those times. At least, not anymore. Marisa hesitated a moment before allowing her hand on Mary’s back to slowly move up and down, hoping the gesture could somehow remedy the painful silence threatening to engulf them. 

After another few minutes or so, Mary seemed to calm down a little, with her cries softening and her breathing slowing and almost in tune with the caress of Marisa’s hand.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t Marisa’s  _ job  _ anymore. She wasn’t meant to comfort Mary, to be there for her, to have any emotional stake in whatever it was that was currently happening to her. Marisa was the one who left—without any explanation or correspondence. Mary was the one who was hurt, and who needed to heal, and who apparently  _ had  _ healed, and who now needed not Marisa but Rebecca.

Yet, why did Marisa linger? Why did she want to stay? Why did she  _ care  _ so strongly when she'd convinced herself for six months that she didn’t?

_ You fool,  _ said the golden monkey, and Marisa looked up to see him standing there, entirely out in the open as his gaze bore into hers.  _ You bloody damn fool. _

Presently Mary lifted her head, her eyes red and swollen and her cheeks stained with tears. Marisa moved forward, as if to wipe at them, but then she stopped, quickly lowering her hand from Mary’s back and folding both of her hands neatly on her lap as she stared at her.

Mary was broken now as she surfaced from the table. Marisa felt as much as saw it, as her presence, her radiance, was nowhere to be found under this crushing sense of seriousness that seemed to consume her.

“Thank you,” Mary said as Marisa handed her a tissue. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she blew her nose and then cleared her throat, eyes swiveling and then stopping at the sight of the golden monkey, whose head was tilted to the side as he gazed back.

“What happened?” Marisa pressed, feeling her voice almost get lost in her throat as she practically choked the words out under the  _ suffocation  _ that was the monkey staring so intensely over at Mary,  _ his  _ Mary.

“We can’t do this,” Mary said before anyone else could say it. It stung. Marisa wished it didn't sting, but it did. She nodded, scuffling her chair back instinctively in response. “We can’t do this, Marisa.”

“I know,” she answered, looking down at a broken piece of tile below the table.

“But do you?” Mary challenged, and although Marisa was still staring down at the tile, she saw through the monkey the pain that crossed Mary’s face not from whatever news about Zoe she had just gotten but from  _ Marisa,  _ from  _ them,  _ from all that had happened.

Marisa learned a few days later that Zoe was diagnosed with cancer. She signed one of the sympathy cards that was passing through the lab, simply writing that her thoughts were with Mary and her family during this difficult time. She watched from afar as Mary suffered, doing the bare essentials at work before taking off early to go help with the kids or take her sister for treatments. She watched Rebecca, too, as she trailed after Mary and both picked up the academic slack while also the personal slack. 

Five months later Zoe eventually died, as the cancer had been too far along to contain. Marisa was slowly and surely falling more and more outside of the loop but she heard that the kids had moved in with Mary at the house—at what used to be  _ their  _ house with  _ their  _ things and  _ their  _ routines. Rebecca had moved in, too, as apparently she hadn’t been living there before but had been staying there more as times grew harder and the two of them grew closer.

Marisa was invited to the wedding but she politely declined, feigning a previous engagement and booking herself a ticket out of the country for that weekend.

_ You fool,  _ the monkey sighed to her as they sat there on the airplane, headed to this world’s Geneva in the best attempt Marisa could possibly make in an effort to return “home.” She couldn’t see him squished there in her handbag under the seat in front of her, but she sensed his scowl and  _ felt  _ his bitter, cruel betrayal.  _ You bloody damn fool. _

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where all this recent angst is coming from, but please, take it 🥺 Science gfs getting real! I just am still very taken with the concept of Marisa leaving—running, fleeing!—and maybe, eventually, coming back...only for Mary to have realized her worth and to not have waited around for her. And for Marisa refusing to admit exactly what she threw away. My heart!


End file.
